Psychology of the Image

Images play a key role in influencing our understanding of ourselves, those around us and our environment. This role is likely to become more central in the next millennium. Psychology of the Image outlines a theoretical framework bringing together the semiotic concepts developed by Charles Peirce, the sociological insights of Ervin Goffman and the psychoanalytic ideas of Jacques Lacan. Image studies in fashion, advertising photography, film studies and psychology have all been influenced in significant ways by these thinkers. The framework presented helps the reader understand how these ideas relate to the study of different domains of the image: the internal imagery of dreams, external images such as the photograph and image processes which span both contexts, e.g., images we have about ourselves.

Michael Forrester is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Kent.